


Prosetober | Madeline Miller | The greatest grief

by Simon_snows_pitch



Series: Prosetober: 31 days of Carry On [3]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Smoking, Swearing, for fiona anyway, the usual, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26845279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simon_snows_pitch/pseuds/Simon_snows_pitch
Summary: This Prosetober, I'm following prompts collected by drawingdawnarts.tumblr.com. Each new prompt will be added to my Prosetober series!Fiona has a bone to pick.
Series: Prosetober: 31 days of Carry On [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953499
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Prosetober | Madeline Miller | The greatest grief

**Author's Note:**

> Heavy swearing in this one -- the Normal and mage kind.

“Remember when I got us those tickets to Fleetwood Mac? I don’t even remember what poor bastard I conned into buying them. Probably promised some fool a looky-loo — Merlin knows how desperate teenage boys are for that. Well, most of them. Not yours, though. I think our little boyo might be queer as they come, but don’t tell him I told you that. He’d cock one of your eyebrows at me and put on some of his famous dramatics and, honestly, that would only get me into trouble. 

“Anyway, we didn’t get to go to that concert, did we, Nat? Don’t know that you minded too much. I sure as hell did.” I grab a ciggy from the pack in my pocket and light it up. One long drag and a few more sips of gin later, we keep talking. “Figured it was the greatest bloody grief anyone could imagine: missing out on the chance to ogle Peter Green from the nosebleed section. I’ve never quite forgiven Dad for ripping up those tickets. Or you, for that matter, for telling him about them in the first place. 

“Did you know I was arrested in Beijing? It all shook out, obviously,” — I gesture around the cemetery for Nat’s sake — “but there were a few days where I was right scared. Thought about calling you, asking you to maybe pull in some favours, but then I remembered how obnoxiously stuck-up you are, and I could just hear your voice.” 

I pitch my voice up to a not-entirely-inaccurate reproduction of her lecturing tone. “ _Well Fi, this is all your fault anyway. How’d you get mixed up in something like that? I know you’re smarter, if you’d just put those brains to good use instead of getting mixed up in all this Morgana-forsaken bullshit. Don’t you know how this is going to look? I’m the Head of Watford and you’re out there ruining our reputation,_ my _reputation. No, I absolutely won’t spare a second of my time to have concern for you, you inferior bitch!_ ” 

“Alright, maybe I’m taking some liberties there. But maybe I’m fucking not. Figured it out on my own though, didn’t I? You never even had a clue.” I have to chuckle at that, that there was something she didn’t ever find out about when she thought she knew everything. “And then there was Nico, and — yeah, that one didn’t shake out so well, did it? I thought breaking it off with him was my new worst memory. And it was. But not for long enough, was it? 

“You lit yourself up and burned yourself down to fucking ash,” I spit. “Brave Natasha, perfect Natasha, can-do-no-wrong Natasha, and you just quit. Couldn’t stand to be one of them, to be diseased, to be lesser. You were a pile of ashes, and your boy didn’t have a mum anymore, and I didn’t have a sister.” If I drink enough gin, it might wash away the lump in my throat, so I give it my best shot. The cemetery is spinning, but the drink does fuck-all. Just my bloody luck. 

“That was the worst day, you know? The worst. Nothing has ever even come close to that. Nothing at all. Until a few hours ago. Your boyo found his way to my apartment. And you know what he said to me? You know what _your son_ asked me? _‘Do you think if my mum hadn’t been bitten and she saw I had, she would’ve set me on fire, too?’_

“And I know. I—I—I _hate_ that I know. You would’ve done. You would’ve kissed your baby boy goodbye rather than let him live. What the fuck do I say to him though? I can’t tell him the bloody truth, now can I? So I lied. What does he know anyway, too young to remember? 

“So I tell him that of course you would have spared him, have saved him. I tell him you just didn’t know how to cope. I tell him you worried _for him_ , and that you didn’t want to be a danger to him or the other kids. I tell him the biggest lie of all then. I tell him you loved him more than you loved yourself.” I can’t help at snort at that one. “There’s no one you’ve ever loved more than yourself, is there, Nat? Guess I’m better than you there. 

“I loved you more than I loved myself. You were my best friend, and I loved you, but you were a cunt all the same. Cheers.” I toast my dear, dead sister, down the last of the gin, and put out my ciggy on her headstone. Ashes for ashes, I guess.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I've never written for Fiona before, and it took me ages to craft this. There's only one, 4-page chapter narrated by Fiona in Carry On D: If you have any constructive or positive feedback, I'd love to hear it =]


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